• Design, construction and service: Goldbeck grows in all business areas and generates total turnover of more than five billion euros
• European business on the up: share of total turnover outside Germany rises to 31 percent
• Milestone in staff development: company employs 10,000 people in more than 100 locations across Europe
• Sustainability declared priority: Goldbeck publishes first sustainability report and appoints Chief Sustainability Officer

Bielefeld, 7 September 2022 As a construction and services company based in Bielefeld, but active throughout Europe, Goldbeck has today published its earnings figures for the 2021/22 financial year. From 1 April 2021 to 31 March 2022 the company generated a total turnover of more than five billion euros, once again closing the most successful financial year in its history (previous year: EUR 4.1 billion). Goldbeck increased its order intake to more than six billion euros.

During the reporting period, Goldbeck handed over a total of 485 turnkey properties to its clients across Europe – including 248 warehouses and factory buildings, 77 office buildings, 68 multi-storey car parks, 50 school and special-category buildings as well as six residential buildings. Goldbeck Building Refurbishment renovated another 36 properties. The company’s service division also continued its positive development. Facility Services increased its real estate portfolio to around 1,200 properties. Property Services had a total of 550 properties under contract, while Parking Services managed approximately 180 car parks with over 80,000 spaces in Germany and Austria. Technical Solutions, which specialises in conversions and extensions, completed 73 projects. Goldbeck Public Partner operated more than 50 buildings as part of public-private partnerships.

In the 2021/22 financial year, Goldbeck also paved the way for launching the new Sustainability Consulting unit, which since April 2022 has advised portfolio owners on the sustainable transformation of real estate portfolios. The company rolled out a new service in the shape of the “plus5 customer service” – which means Goldbeck automatically stays by its client’s side during the first five years of the building use – as an extension of the building service –, supporting them with the start of operation, regularly checking key building functions, and ensuring that everything runs smoothly and efficiently. This extensive, cross-lifecycle service from Goldbeck is a unique selling point in the industry.

Breadth of added value and systematisation alleviate effects of material shortages and price hikes

The flexibility of the product portfolio helped Goldbeck produce a positive performance even in the currently challenging macroeconomic situation. Thanks to its modular approach to construction, the company was able to compensate to some extent for the limited availability of materials coupled with higher material prices: since Goldbeck prefabricates all of the key system components in its own plants in an industrial and resource-efficient manner, the company orders the requisite raw materials as part of long-term partnerships way in advance, and in large quantities. “Our construction with a system approach has also proved its worth in these challenging times”, says Jörg-Uwe Goldbeck, who leads the family company together with his brother Jan-Hendrik Goldbeck as managing partners. “The fact we achieved our forecasts last year and are starting this current financial year with a good order backlog (work in hand) gives us confidence. Without the ongoing trust of our clients and partners as well as the significant personal dedication of our employees, this would barely have been possible.”

More than 10,000 people work at Goldbeck

The company currently employs more than 10,000 people – a milestone that Goldbeck reached in spring 2022. With 1,384 people joining in the 2021/22 financial year, the growth in employees exceeded the previous year (786). Alongside continuous recruitment, one focal area of Goldbeck’s HR work is improving the range of training and continuing education opportunities. The staff of the company have attended more than 139,000 sessions on the “Goldbeck Campus” – corresponding to roughly 20 further training hours per employee. What is more, the family-run company has invested further in international young talent and in setting up mentoring programmes. In the last financial year, Goldbeck employed 238 apprentices, working students and trainees.

Goldbeck makes strides in Europe

The company has also strongly expanded its European locations. Since the acquisition of DS Gruppen in April 2022, Goldbeck has been active in northern European markets too, and now serves clients across Europe. This Danish company specialises in implementing turnkey commercial properties in Scandinavia as well as producing construction components, and generated total turnover in 2021 of roughly EUR 300 million. This means Goldbeck is reinforcing its position as Europe’s leading lifecycle partner for commercial and public buildings, as Jan-Hendrik Goldbeck, also managing partner, explains: “We now generate roughly a third of our total turnover in other European countries. With the support of DS Gruppen and the additional production capacities we will be able to exploit the opportunities offered by the European markets even more than before. Personally, I am particularly delighted about the more than 600 new colleagues with whom we not only have a similar business model, but we also share common values.”

Comprehensive investments in expanding own production capacities

Thanks to the additional production capacity that DS Gruppen brings to the table, the expansion of Goldbeck production is by no means finished. The company currently manufactures at 13 of its own plant locations in Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic and Denmark. Upon releasing its balance sheet, Goldbeck revealed its intention to invest roughly EUR 200 million in the coming years – with the plans including plant expansions and new plant locations as well as raising the level of automation. “In the medium term this will not only improve our productivity and our speed, but will also make sustainable changes to areas such as occupational safety, energy efficiency and conserving resources”, said Jan-Hendrik Goldbeck. 

Sustainability: key guiding principle for future company activities

Last year Goldbeck announced that from the 2023/24 financial year it wanted to operate on a carbon-neutral basis at company level, and was working on reducing the emissions of its own products and services. The company is making good progress in this respect, explains Jörg-Uwe Goldbeck: “We use resources sparingly by exploiting opportunities for systematisation and industrialisation, new technologies and taking a lifecycle approach. All our locations and even our construction sites in Germany now operate with green electricity, and we are gradually switching to an electric vehicle fleet. However, to make an appropriate contribution to achieving the 1.5-degree target we have to do more, and sound out our entire company for optimisation potential.”

Key milestones here included the ISO 14001 certification of the Goldbeck environmental management system, as well as the publication of the first Goldbeck sustainability report – appearing alongside the annual report – which provided a detailed survey. To further strengthen and intensify sustainability management, this year Goldbeck also appointed its first Chief Sustainability Officer, and created the central department of “Group Sustainability”. “In the context of sustainability there are still many outstanding issues we are seeking appropriate Goldbeck answers too, and gears that we must set in motion. This important task will be tackled by the new department together with the decentralised sustainability teams in Product and Service Development, Production and Assembly as well as at the regional branches. It will require teamwork and endurance, but I am certain that it makes sense and is important”, concluded Jörg-Uwe Goldbeck.